New Walkway!

I thought I should share this post that's been sitting in my draft folder for the last 4 (make that 5!) years...finally publishing it.

Like most of the projects around our house, this garden is not quite 100 percent done yet. The stones are set but now I have to start planting to fill in all the exposed dirt area. Luckily this time of the year is the best time to put new plants in the ground.

I don't have a master plan for the soft scape per se. My style of gardening is find plants that interest me then try to match the area to the type of plants that might do well there. I will also have to install an irrigation system to stream line the watering process since everything is done by hand right now by moi. 

So the final cost of the walkway installation including materials and labor came out to around $11,500 which is a little over our initial budget of $10,000. I was able to negotiate the rough estimate from $11,000 down to $6,500 with the stone installer but after all the material and disposal cost the total ballooned to almost doubling the installer's initial quote. 

The first estimate we got from the professional landscape designer was over $20k which included all the planting and irrigation. I also got a second estimate that was $6,000 for just installing the walkway but who knows what additional cost for all the extra stuff such as trash disposal would've cost in the end. The contractor who gave me the 2nd estimate really took his time to get back to me otherwise I would've given him the job. The guy I ended up using was very responsive to my questions and needs even though his estimates came in higher. They say that early bird gets the worm, there is some truth to that. 

So we shall see how much more we still have to spend for the remainder of the project. Justin has said he could install the drip irrigation to save us some money from hiring out. I am so excited for this next phase of the project! (We never got to this phase of the project unfortunately :-( )